Himachal: School Bags to Weigh No More Than 10% of Student’s Total Weight; Education Department Issues Directives

May 22, 2026

To alleviate the burden of heavy schoolbags carried by schoolchildren, the Himachal Pradesh Education Department has taken a decisive step. According to the new guidelines, the weight of a student’s schoolbag in any school across the state must now not exceed 10 percent of their body weight.

To ensure the smooth implementation of this new system, strict directives have been issued to the management of all government and private schools throughout the state. As per the notification issued by the Education Department, this rule will apply equally to all private and government schools within the state.

It has been observed that private schools often mandate the use of numerous additional textbooks and notebooks, which significantly increases the weight of children’s bags. Now, school management itself must ensure that the weight of any child’s schoolbag does not exceed the prescribed limit.

Strict administrative action will be taken against schools found violating these regulations. To curb the issue of increasing bag weight, the department has taken another major step: it is now mandatory for all schools to teach using authentic textbooks published by the NCERT.

Many private schools, for their own commercial gain, incorporate thick and heavy textbooks from private publishers into their curriculum. With this new mandate, the arbitrary practices of private publishers will be completely curbed, and children will be required to study only essential and high-quality educational material. Meanwhile, Gopal Chauhan, Deputy Director of Higher Education, stated that to translate this order into reality, school management committees will need to make specific arrangements at their own level. School timetables must be designed in such a way that children are not required to carry textbooks for all subjects every day. Children will be asked to bring only those notebooks and textbooks that are required for the classes scheduled on that particular day. He has issued instructions to all schools to implement this new system.